Women and girls? I can't even #2

Documenting the erasure of the words woman and girl in NZ public life.

Going with the flow

A new “inclusive” resource about gender equity in the outdoors excludes the words girls and women when discussing menstruation. “This resource will help you to have a better understanding about the needs of those who menstruate” gloats the blurb but the blurb doesn’t mention the words girl, woman or female. It sounds an awful lot like young women are being taught to be ashamed of what they are and to dismiss the correlation between femaleness and menstruation.

In the resource itself they use our old favourite “people who menstruate”.

Sometimes the resource does mention girls and women, but it does an impressive self-flagellation for doing so. You shouldn’t do that, the authors say, and nor should we.

They even include a nice condescending bit of advice: “We encourage people of all cultures to work towards using inclusive language such as ‘people who menstruate’”. These self-identified Pākehā cis-women know best. Other cultures, this statement implies, are backwards, and need to catch up.

Talk peach: gynaecological awareness

A really great initiative on gynaecological cancers except….except for a devastating omission.

The home page doesn’t mention that the class of people who get gynaecological cancers are women. Oops. Health awareness campaigns need to use plain language. This doesn’t.

The Learn More page, shown below, says 1000 New Zealanders will be diagnosed with 1 of the 5 gynaecological cancers and 400 New Zealanders will die from one every year.

There is no mention of the type of New Zealanders who will be diagnosed or die.

Academic projects about our sex that don’t mention our sex!

Let’s Talk Blood | Facebook post on 8 December 2023

Dr Ute Kreplin is aiming to “contribute to dialogue on period equity and inform evidence-based interventions and policies to promote positive menstrual experiences for all.” For all? Really? Good luck with that Ute.

Maternal Mental Health Study, Women’s Health Action Facebook post | 18 December 2023

A new study on maternal mental health was promoted by the Women’s Health Action Trust on Facebook. There is no mention of the word mother or the word woman. I would venture failing to even name women and mothers is humiliating, unkind and demeaning. None of that is very good for maternal mental health.

Thanks to those who sent me NZ examples of the growing stigma around using the words women, girl and mother. I think documenting this phenomenon is really important. We need meaningful language to name our experiences, not bizzare and haphazard weasel words that are pretending we don’t exist. Send me more if you see them! Feminist birthing legend Milli Hill is having some success in pushing back over in the UK. Perhaps we can do the same here.